PlazaJen: The Blog

Riding the Bike with One Pedal.

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      Short On Everything…

      June 13, 2007 /

      I’m running from work to an after-work par-tay, and I was trying to think of something fast (and engaging, and clever) to blog about and really, the only picture I got in my mind was of the wee little dude, years ago, who came charging out of the gate at the American Royal, clutching the side of his sheep as if his life depended upon it. And kept that little hand raised, cowboy-style, even as most of him disappeared behind the side of said racing sheep.

      I found this great picture here, by photojournalist Wendell Phillips, who pretty much captures the essence of what this week feels like. Meeting after Meeting after Meeting. Work piling up like chocolate on Lucy & Ethel. Commitments, phone calls, errands, laundry – the list, it never ends! And it’s appropriate for me, you know, to cling to wool in times of stress. I’m hesitant to plaster his picture on my website since I don’t have permission, so I trust you to click on through……
      Gotta go – about to be late, something I excel at!

      Knits! Life! Thanks!

      June 12, 2007 /

      I have a couple finished objects…..

      The Emperor’s New Scarf (pattern by Lucy Neatby) is done! My gnome approves.

      Cozy Gnome

      I’m teaching this as a class at The Studio in August! I’m also teaching a class uh, next week, so I have to get that store sample done, pronto! (It’s a bath cloth, short rows, and it’s half done – in linen, one size zeros…)

      I also finished my Opal Flamingo socks, and my gnome REALLY liked these:

      Gnome in Disguise

      We went out to the Stitch-N-Pitch on Sunday and had a great time. Sunburns for everyone, a big win for the team, and I’m actually going back out to the stadium tonight! I’ll probably be even sweatier. Yay!
      Me taking a self-portrait/inclusive pic:
      Kansas City Stitch-N-Pitch

      Kyra, Beth, Jimmi, Lissa (in the row behind leaning forward):

      Kansas City Stitch-N-Pitch

      Kristin & Justin:

      Kansas City Stitch-N-Pitch

      We all had names on our sleeves, and numbers on our backs (I was “11”, because THIS knitter goes to ELEVEN! – just like my old blog tagline, all of which was, of course, in homage to Spinal Tap.) You will not be surprised to see my knitname:

      Kansas City Stitch-N-Pitch

      I figure after some of the stupid drama in our knitting group, it was perfect.

      Thanks to everyone for the comments, well-wishes & thoughts sent my way, especially this week. My dad would be amazed at the number of great, caring people I have in my life. And a little thankful, I think, that his only child didn’t end up all alone in the big world. The day before he died, just hours before I got the phone call, telling me to come home, hearing the last words he truly spoke to me, I wrote this post. I still remember the feeling inside, of crumpling, falling finally underneath it all – even before the phone rang. And you? You were there. You came through. You helped. And you haven’t left me. Thank you again. I found this post because I wanted to find the words I couldn’t remember, the poem about hope. If you don’t click through, here are those beautiful words, one more time.

      Hope is the thing with feathers
      That perches in the soul
      And sings the tune without the words
      And never stops at all.
      — Emily Dickinson

      But Of Course We Had F’n Ziti…..

      June 10, 2007 /

      Ahhhh, The Sopranos.

      We had some friends over for dinner & the finale tonight….. it was a bittersweet day, the one year anniversary of dad’s death…..the end of the show he loved so much….. waking up to hear Coldplay’s “Fix You”, crying in my husband’s arms…. the skies pouring rain and then the sun treating us to a fabulous afternoon at the stadium, with my dear, dear knitty friends, in our matching shirts – and the Royals stomped ’em, 17-5. (Seventeen! Who is this team?)

      So I came home & made the fuckin’ ziti.

      fnziti

      Because the first episode had the great line (“What? No fuckin’ ziti?”) And the last episode ended with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” – yes, my friends, I torture my co-workers by singing those greatest hits, so it just felt right – and the anxiety of the ending – so perfect, so David Chase, so not Hollywood, just another night in the Soprano family, the usual demons lurking in the shadows – a hit man? a rat? an explosion? a court date? All of us have our demons, and they lurk every day. Nobody gets it all wrapped up by the 10 o’clock news. So I loved it. Love, love, loved it. But I must say, when the music stopped (oh David, you love your music and its perfection in your stories) and the screen went blank, we all thought something HAD happened. To the TV. To the cable. Momma Linda thought James was playing a trick with the remote. But no. It just went to black. And silence. And at 6:30 tonight I realized I hadn’t stopped at 6:00, to the minute, to observe my father’s death. There was no Singular Moment today. No neatly-wrapped ending. Just listening to my friends buzzing, opening wine, bringing dishes to the table. A few hot tears, but a smile, too. It all goes on. Until it doesn’t. Those who are left behind are left wanting more, more. But it is done.

      A very good day, and better than I expected, at many turns.

      Contrasts…

      June 7, 2007 /

      Last night at Tea Drops….

      Afternoon Nosh

      Slumber

      Boba! Bubble Tea!

      Homeless in Kansas City

      The drink on the right was what he bought, so he could sit (sleep) on the couch.

      Do I feel a twinge, when I see my life in contrast? Yep. I’ve trained my eyes to lose focus when I see panhandlers at the light. Can I save everyone? Nope. I’m glad we donate food to Harvesters, and that we have resources for people like him, if he wants them.

      Knitting for Greensburg

      June 6, 2007 /

      There’s a great charity project underway, called “Rebuilding Greensburg, Block By Block” – and I finished my eighth square last night & will get them sent off tomorrow. For now, here are the pictures of the seven squares (with my gnome, who likes to be a photo element in many of my pictures now…)

      Squares for Greensburg

      Squares for Greensburg

      Basically, the simplest project ever, and it was nice to use up some leftover wool & sock yarns. If you have any lolling about & want a nice mindless project, you should join in the fun! I owe my buddy Kyra for cluing me in to the project……

      Foodie Fotos

      June 5, 2007 /

      Last night, we had homemade pizza for dinner:

      Homemade Pizza

      I usually make the dough from scratch, but since I’d bought extra bread dough for the calzones I made a few weeks back, I thought, hm, I’ll just thaw that & try it out. It was pretty good – it wasn’t as pliable as my dough, and I like the chewiness a fresh yeast bread has. That said, I loaded it up with spicy sausage, vidalia onions, black olives & mushrooms, and it was quite yummy!

      On Memorial Day, I made spring rolls.

      Spring Rolls
      These are a lot of work, and I still have a long way to go on learning how to roll them as well as they do at my favorite Thai & Vietnamese haunts. I also made homemade peanut sauce, um, quite a lot, so we utilized that for lunch the next weeked over noodles & some broccoli thrown in for green goodness.

      We had quite a few leftover rice noodles, so the dogs got those, and of course we had to have a little fun with ’em – here’s Suzy looking scary, but in reality, just driven to get the dang noodles off her nose & into her mouth….

      Rice Noodles on Suzy

      Dudes, it’s lunchtime & with all these photos of food, I’m hungry!

      Metronome

      June 4, 2007 /

      One week. Tick Tock.

      No matter how hard I intellectually cope, reason, and talk to myself, it’s there.
      Looming.

      The anniversary of my dad’s death, this coming Sunday.

      Of course I’ll remember.
      But will I remember at 6?
      Will I fall apart?
      Will I pendulum-swing the other direction?
      Unknown. Unknown.
      Questions rise like bubbles.
      Tick Tock, Tick Tock, TICK TOCK

      Sometimes the ticking is deafening.
      At the grocery store.
      I gripped my cart hard and wondered,
      Is this it? Is this the moment where the glue melts,
      the screws break, the dovetails splinter?
      What would happen?
      Would anyone stop? Or would they reach over me,
      Totinos Crispy Pizzas, 2 for $4
      (with your Chopper Shopper card)
      Would they arrest me? Or just escort me to my car.
      When would my clarity reclaim me?
      In time to realize the dark humor of a meltdown in Frozen Foods?
      Cleanup, Aisle 10.

      But nothing. Just the ticking. And the tocking.
      Controlled madness.

      In the top of my brain, at the surface, I know. It will all be ok. OK is general, my brain wants specifics. I worked hard last night to clear my mind, to stop searching, knowing I can’t stop the metronome from ticking, but I can make it softer, so I can get through my life, this week, next Sunday.

      I think my mania showed a bit in this weekend’s activities. I weeded like crazy. I knit squares for Greensburg – 7 of them, with an 8th started – like I was in a competition. My tooth is also hurting me, so that hasn’t helped. (I’m calling the dentist today, I think the temporary crown is sitting too high & causing some of the zinging pain.) It was a good weekend, despite the ticking.

      It’ll be ok, I’ll be ok, and I’ll keep learning about this crazy-ass thing called “grief”.

      Update!

      June 1, 2007 /

      So I got to the dentist, and they instantly sensed my anxiety. I thought I was masking it quite well, but those people? They are TRAINED. Everyone was reassuring.

      Then we went back & I discovered I was only getting a temporary crown. Not the permanent crown. But I had waited for this appointment because we had to wait for the lab to MAKE my crown, and it turns out that was a miscommunication between the back (where the facts are, ma’am) and the front (where the calendar is kept). What was probably (in retrospect) the funniest part of all was my insistence and carefully worded questions all in an attempt to steer today’s procedure to the permanent crown and why I believed I was getting it even though no permanent crown exists (yet) and this was why I was here, and I KNEW this was correct, and I realized that I was starting to sound like I was headed down the path of telling them what the dentistry procedures would be and then I shut up, because I have a degree in Studio Art. And in the end, they have the big metal needle.

      Now, I will say that my dentist is the master of administering Novocaine. It was a rapid progression from “normal” to “can’t feel anything”. But later, when the tooth grinding & shaping was taking place, I became acutely aware that one shot of Novocaine is technically not enough for this procedure, but in addition to getting a degree in Studio Art, I also attended my father’s School Of Being A Dentistry Patient, in that he had a great tolerance for pain and it was a celebrated area of study. I once got a cavity filled with no Novocaine. So as my dentist ground chunks of tooth, spraying enamel and bone and a lovely burning smell in my mouth, I toughed it the hell out. It’s difficult to yell “Mother Fucker!!!!” with three gloved hands in your mouth, anyway. We had a small review of the procedure and my pain level, and I could tell he desperately wanted to administer an additional shot, because hey, dentistry has a bad rap as it is, and what good doctor wants to inflict pain? It’s not like we were doing a sequel to the Marathon Man or anything. But I was raised to tolerate pain to a point if it means getting something over with faster. So I communicated that and went into stoic mode. Apparently that also includes extraordinary muscle tensing in my arms because I am as sore as if I’d lifted weights for two hours, instead of lying in a chair for about the same amount of time.

      So. The numbness is wearing off, which is good, and the temporary crown feels weird, the texture of it doesn’t match my other teeth. And I go back in 2 & a half weeks. There’s a chance I won’t need another numbing shot & you can bet I’ll be striving to avoid one! (Within reason, of course.) Let the weekend begin! I’m thinking a shot of something ELSE might be in order soon…. :)

      The Coronation….

      June 1, 2007 /

      I’ll be getting my tooth crowned this afternoon, starting around 2:30.

      As I said in the dark last night to the Wo, “This is one of those yucky adult things you just have to do & get through it. I’ve been through worse.”

      Bleah! Being a grownup sucks! Why did we want to grow up so fast? So we could drive? Leave home? Party all the time, like Eddie Murphy sang?

      I nearly cried last night, because I started thinking about another person I know, (who doesn’t read this blog, so y’all don’t know her), but she is facing some really serious grown-up shit, and my toothy worries pale by comparison. I looked out my window at the back yard, bathed in the light of the Blue Moon, and I thought of her, and how her whole world changed from one visit to the doctor, and everything she’d planned got more than knocked down, a tornado came through and flung her Jenga tower and future right out the window. I don’t often pray, and I’m not a religious person, but last night I prayed for her to find her way & to find some peace. I know a lot of people (who DO read this blog) who also need some of that good mojo, and I wish it for you, too, and for me, and most of all for people like this friend, who remind me that as much as I bitch & complain and fret and worry and wring my hands over one tooth, it could be a whole. lot. worse.

      So I leaned over and hugged my husband for good luck and to remind him how loved he is, and how happy I am we have this life together, and then he made me laugh because the suggestion of me sleeping like that sent me into a claustrophobia seizure. That’s me, that’s us. Always trying to find some laughter, in the darkness. I’ll share more about my friend once I can, but for now, I hope my eyes-squeezed-tight-shut while thinking-good-thoughts will reach her & help in some small way.

      The Puzzle Is Jenga.

      May 31, 2007 /

      I am working on an outdoor/billboard campaign for a client, and I’m working with two vendors & two time frames. I am slowly, sometimes rapidly, going insane. I told one of my reps today that it’s the equivalent of playing Jenga over and over and over, but every time you take out one single block, the whole damn thing falls down. And when I get input from one vendor, it changes what I need from the other, and honestly, this is the kind of stuff I love, the mental juggling and whatnot, but this has been pretty extreme, and I’ve had a bunch of OTHER stuff to do in the same amount of time. Plus I’m getting a crown on my tooth tomorrow, and I have The Anxiety.

      So, I’ve had all these awesome things I wanted to blog about, and then I forget them. Poof, right out of my head, leaving a dark hole of memory, like a brick out of a Jenga tower. I appreciate you checking in on me, but I also realize my blog’s been about as fun as watching paint dry of late. I have knitting pictures to share, I have foodie pics to share, I still have stuff to SAY! And shout! I did get my invitation to Ravelry, and I immediately snatched it up like fresh sock yarn and clutched it to my chest with great gusto. Then this afternoon, I got invited to the De-stash blog, and so I can only conclude the stars are aligning for me. Which is nice, because if I were going to write myself a retrospective horoscope, I would say, “For the past year, you will have a lot of suckage and unsolvable puzzles and big hard emotional blocks to work with, and they will collapse around you like a Jenga tower, sometimes multiple times a day. The Jenga will sometimes be impossible to balance and you must learn to accept this futility even as you never fully stop trying to solve the puzzle.”

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